Shashi Tharoor is no Shashi Kapoor. He is not dapper, he is not an actor, and he is a writer of books. Anybody who is a writer of books is generally not considered as charismatic as Shashi Kapoor.

But, anywhere the post of UN Secretary General is mentioned, Shashi Tharoor is mentioned. Jayantha Dhanapala is mentioned as well….. but suddenly, soon after, like mushrooms springing from the barnyard where the pigs were kept for the night, soon after Dhanapala and Tharoor springs the name of Tyronne. Not Tyrone Power. This seems to be all getting mixed up. Tyronne Fernando is to Tyronne Power, the silver screen classic actor, what Shashi Tharoor is to Shashi Kapoor.

Why does Tyrone mushroom, always where Tharoor and Dhanapala have reclined? Well, reclined in manner of speaking of course, but wherever Dhanapala and Tharoor are mentioned, you could be sure that Tyronne Fernando is trotting not far behind.

How does this happen? Some bright young people said it is funny, he (Tyrone ) wants the job of Kofi Annan, and shakes his hand nevertheless. What's this called now? The golden handshake? Talking of the golden handshake, it does remind one of the Midas touch. Everything Midas touches turns into gold. Tyrone has the Midas touch these days too. Except that my mechanic says it is fixed in reverse gear, sort of.

Everything that's gold seems to turn into black and white when Tyronne touches it. The moment Tyronne touches the hand of Kofi Anan in order to give him the golden handshake (so that Tyrone can occupy his seat), you can be sure Anan will appear in the papers in black and white the next day. Every paper will have it, Daily Mirror, Daily whatever you may call it.

But this is at a sustained level and come to think of it, like some coffin that lies in the house in an extended wake, this sort of Tyrone for Secretary General pose has been going on in the papers for an extended period of time now. Who is to say that Fernando does not have his own yardstick of who is right for the big job and who isn't?
Take this for instance. Even as I am writing this, I misspelt both Fernando and Anan on my computer keyboard, as I am not a good typist at all. But these computers do wonders for butter fingered typists.

There is the automatic spellchecker. I immediately took the spellchecker to the two words Fernando and Anan, and presto the spell checker obviously recognises Fernando, because it asks 'do you want to change Fernanndoo (that's how I misspellt it) to Fernando? But when I take it to Anans (that's how I misspellt Anan) the spellchecker doesn't say 'do you want to change it to Anan?' Hmmm, Fernando is big, and who's afraid of Kofi Annan?

Now, they say everywhere that Sahshi Tharoor is a writer, and Dhanapala is a diplomat….. but Sahshi Tharoor's writing capabilities have been getting so much press. Press! Now press is the operative word.

Shashi Tharoor may have been getting a lot of press about his writing, but Fernando is writing the press. Now wait a minute I am getting confused here…… but let's take that again, slowly. Shashi Tharoor gets a lot of press about his writing, But Fernando, he is writing the press. Everytime Tharoor does something, Fernando lets slip to the press that he is running too, and is running tight race at that. Again Fernando seems to have tackled Tharoor, right? What's the difference, Fernando would say - - 'writing gets the press -- writing the press'. Same thing no?

By whatever logic, Fernando knows how to keep in the race. That's the importance of being Fernando. Shashi Tharoor may be a shoo in for Secretary General. But that's only because Sahshi rhymes with shoo, right? Come on, you don't second guess the next UN Secretary General?

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